FILE- Louisiana State Superintendent John White gives his "Louisiana Believes" presentation to the Lafayette Parish School Board during a meeting on Wednesday, August 22, 2012.

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BATON ROUGE - Superintendent of Education John White says there's no evidence that tougher job performance assessment requirements are driving more teachers out of the classroom and into retirement.

"Retirement isn't just about the classroom," he said Monday in a teleconference with reporters.

Several factors - mainly financial ones - influence when a teacher decides to retire, so the new state standards aren't causing an increase, he said. But a sizeable percentage of the teachers who did choose to leave the classroom were some of the worst ones, the superintendent said. ...